But the British FA are also slow too really do anything to clean up their game or promote any fairness in their competition (money wise) so I doubt we would be any better of with the Brits in charge. They could be setting an example by cleaning up the premier league (retroactive punishment for divers) but they don’t.
Of course that would probably set them back on the field if they were playing by a different set of moral standards to the rest of the world. But Scotland and Australia are prepared to do it.

Nurse – please give the “Viscount” some medication to calm him down

If he makes a come back and we get out of the group stage I will call for a recount though.

Sure, I am a believer in free speech. But his comments were deemed offensive and inappropriate by the people who run this site. He was not prepared to censor himself so off he went volutntarily.

He did everybody a favour.

Those that are likely to give the biggest damn (Australians/North Americans) – aren’t really enamoured of the game to the same extent.

For this, we will pay for doing dumb things (like defenders unncessarily going to ground), until we catch up with the levels of cunning shown all around the world – we cannot compete otherwise.

All the examples you provide are slowly coming round anyway.

In fact, Towser was hounded off the Roar for expressing a very similar view a few months back – basically, in the modern age, people are capable of coming up with plenty of English examples – that’s what they call globalisation.

Putting aside joke shop blood capsules, it’s not surprising that Rugby was one of the last football codes to go professional – Gaelic football still is, and is completely devoid of this sort of rubbish.

Yes – it’s a little provincial game – but one steeped in tradition that has remained true to itself.

Or were we collectively included in the Anglos?

But then the Latins – especially the south Americans – got in on the act and began to introduce their own philosophy to the game. This held that those indulging in diving and cheating – or outright brutality – ought to be applauded for their cleverness. Speak to an Argentinian today and that is exactly what he’ll tell you. Maradona wasn’t a cheat; he was “clever”. Thus we get the Hand of God, we get Diego Simeone winding up Beckham, we get the Uruguyans kicking teams off the park, and so on and so forth.

The only nations prepared to take a stand against cheating are the Anglos, the French (sometimes), the Italians (sometimes – they do have a chivalrous side) and the Scandinavians. The rest of world football is a cesspit and will never change, so it’s pointless even talking about it.

A FIFA meeting.

An even bigger farce than Henry’s handball.

I see that FIFA have announced a “BIG MEETING’ for early December. This is to let people know they are ‘TAKING THINGS VERY SERIOUSLY’ and have lots of important people meeting in a room and talking about things.

Will anything concrete emerge from this very important meeting? I’m betting no.

Henry’s cheating is not really comparable to diving, etc. The end result is the same but if someone is prepared to do something that blatant on the big stage and know there is a good chance he will get away with it, then it is genuinely worrying. Diving in the box and faking fouls are harder for refs to spot in real time.

What really gets me is the multitude of players willing to spout the ‘that’s football’ line. It’s the kind of thoughtless, mindless crap that can and will excuse just about anything. and never seems to elicit further questioning from the interviewers.

I may be swimming against the tide here but I would love to see Culina et al grilled just a little harder so they can justify their back-seat support properly. Just because journos don’t get to interview Blatter et al, doesn’t mean hard questions can’t be asked somewhere along the line.

Also I’m surprised how many Australians on this thread are so keen to abandon the notion of fair play (not in the FIFA sense of the term!) and have a go at the Irish apologists and genuinely outraged people out there. Maybe the Aussie hatred of whingers, which by and large is also a good thing, is coming into play here.

I think the two extra assistant refs is a great idea… But by & large you get good calls and you get bad calls … most acept that it evens out in the end…

As for Thierry, kama will get him he will maybe never be said to be a great ….

With regard to Australia and the USA, or the very least the USA, don’t you think that FIFA wants as big a slice of our sporting pies as they can get? Not sure they want to actively remain as the 3rd or 4th sport in our countries for ever…

In football, you need something big to happen before FIFA gets it act together.

Yesterday, in Tuckerman’s piece. I posted the reason why FIFA introduced the simultaneous playing of the last Group Games at the WC.Now in hindsight it makes perfect sense to have the games played at the same time, but it took a scandal much worse than what Henry did against the Irish to make FIFA act. However, the victim in that matter, the Algerians, like the Irish had to cop it sweet.

Now once again – let me say that all team sports at professional levels try to push the envelop in terms of getting an advantage for their team – so that that happens in the World game is not a big deal in itself – but the clear trend in my eyes – viewing it over a 35 year period – is that the difficulty in goal scoring has doubled in that period – so now deceiving the ref comes with huge rewards – the ability to score one of the very few goals scored per game – this is the trend I have observed which I don’t like – but the rest of the world doesn’t care – that’s very clear.

The fans of the game, worldwide, do not give a damn about Henry’s handball.

Do fans the world over give a damn about 2nd tier games being fixed? I doubt it.